Steele's Run as RNC Chair Coming to An End

Way back in April 2010, when there were calls for Steele to be bounced as RNC Chairman,  I predicted that he would survive that challenge to serve out his term, but would not be reelected to the post in 2011.  The RNC Chairman position will be voted on Jan. 14 and I expect that prediction to hold firm.  Steele faced off against his rivals for the job in a first ever RNC Chair debate yesterday.

I blogged several times on Steele and right from the get go, his numerous gaffes were cringe inducing. Groveling to Rush, talking about wooing black voters with fried chicken, the GQ article where he used profanity and made nonsensical statements and so much more.

While many people will defend him on the basis of the GOP's electoral performance in the mid terms, I'm not entirely inclined to give him over much credit there. I look at his tenure the way I look at what the Obama administration and the Fed are doing for the big banks. If you're selling the banks money at 0% and they resell at 4% and up, of course they will show profits. My 7 year old could make money like that. Likewise with Steele. In this environment, with so much outrage at the Obama administration and a grassroots Tea Party wind at your back that the RNC had nothing to do with creating, how could you fail to win elections?

There are legit questions about his performance, the RNC's debt and his management. He wasn't part of the establishment network and was fought in some ways, thats a legit defense to his critics. But if I judge him on what he's done for the RNC brand during his tenure, I'd have to say he seriously underperformed.

Related articles

• The Race For RNC Chair Matters (riehlworldview.com)
• Majority of RNC against Steele (politico.com)
• Watch: RNC Chair Candidates United Against Marriage Equality (towleroad.com)
• At an RNC debate, Michael Steele half-heartedly asks to keep his job. (slate.com)
• RNC Chairman Michael Steele Lacks Support, Likely To Be Toast (mediaite.com)
• Is The RNC On The Priebupice Of Disaster? (riehlworldview.com)
• GOP donors not thrilled about Michael Steele's reelection bid (shortformblog.com)

Steele: No Longer Relevant

RNC Chairman Michael Steele

I've been critical of Michael Steele from the day he assumed the office of RNC chair. It began on the very day of his election, when asked what message he had for the president and he replied "how do you like me now?" It continued through a disappointing early Esquire magazine interview laced with profanity and reached a new low when he came to Indianapolis, my homebase, for the Young Republican election and encouraged minorities "ya'll come. I got the fried chicken".  It only got worse with nonsensical explanations that it was all strategic.  I certainly wanted him to be successful, but from the very opening bell of his chairmanship, he sounded one false note after another.

Now,  it looks like all of the accumulated, self inflicted damage may be approaching a tipping point.  Steele appears to be merely a figurehead, a political dead man walking. His latest embarrassment is the booty shaking party the RNC recently footed the bill for at a topless bar.  The RNC fired the staffer who approved the expenditure and now comes word that the RNC chief of staff has stepped down.  As aptly observed by Hot Air  "So the chairman with the allegedly slim margin of error is still there but the underling with the wiiiiiide margin of error isn’t?"

Steele indicated near the beginning of his term that his tenure would be judged by elections won and money raised. While the GOP can certainly point to election wins, on the money front,  the GOP's big money donors, worried about spendthrift ways and repeated gaffes, are not only withholding their support from the RNC, but have actually created a shadow RNC operation which has already raised $30 million bucks. Compare that to the Republican National Committee which had only $8.4 million in the bank  in January, compared with the $22.8 million it had on had a year earlier when Steele was elected chairman.

With this development, it seems to me that Steele has become a marginalized and impotent figurehead at the top of the RNC operation.  In the current political climate, its hard to see how the RNC can't  raise the cash to compete in the fall elections.  Although this shadow operation probably has been in the works for some time, Steele's gaffes are the biggest reason the big money donors are walking away from the RNC to alternatives for their money.  When they start raising the money around you, thats a statement that you're not relevant AT ALL.

Steele can't be fired by the party's big money donors since he was elected by a different constituency, the state party chairs. A majority vote of that group is necessary to bounce him out of the job and that seems unlikely on the record before us since they are mostly busy with primaries and state level work, not inside the beltway games.  But when the party elite create fundraising mechanisms that work to funnel millions of dollars around the RNC, effectively cutting Steele out of the serious decision making loop, doesn't this make him the worst sort of token?  The gaffes, the burn rate, the general mismanagement of the GOP message, these are reason enough to permit the creation of a shadow RNC, but not to vote Steele out of office?  The party elite can't fire him and the state chairs don't consider him important enough to pay attention to.  If that's not the definition of irrelevant, I don't know what it is.  The situation leaves room for the interpretation that the GOP doesn't respect the chair enough to look him in the eye and tell him "the job you're doing isn't up to par and we're gonna make a change" in order to avoid the optics of firing a black man.

That's probably too strong. There are good, practical and political reasons not to dump Steele now; with just months to go to November elections and his term ending in January anyway, it would create disarray and havoc on   fundraising and organization in this runup period. The optics would be spun by lamestream media for the racial angle, helped along by Steele's own comments on ABC's "Good Morning America. It would be an enormous distraction and a gift to the Democrats.

Political Season's prediction: Steele will serve out his term and then a new chair will be named to helm the RNC ship.  Steele has said he won't step down under the pressure from party elites.  He's making it clear that he's not their guy.  The 168 state party chairs who's votes are required to bounce him don't appear interested in working up the energy to muster a 2/3 vote to oust him, which suggests that despite the complaints of the party elite and Steele's gaffes, their basic needs are being met by the RNC. 

What do you think? Is there any merit to Steele's claim that his "margin for error" is slimmer than a white chairman's would be? Am I wrong in my analysis to conclude that Steele has now become irrelevant to the shaping of the national political discussion and agenda? Is it an unfair assessment to say that Steele is now more punch line than politico?

Black Republicans Call Steele to Account

Hat Tip Booker Rising

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor and head of the National Republican African American Caucus, Dr. Howard Hill, responds to RNC chairman Michael Steele's statement calling for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to resign over his comments about President Obama: “If RNC Chair, Michael Steele is truly concerned with racism, then perhaps he needs to first begin within our own party. There are certainly enough issues with race for him to have his hands full in dealing with this right here within the Republican Party. There also are a few within the GOP leadership, he also may wish to ask to step down.”

She continues her statement: "As a 30-year veteran African American Republican and as the head of the National Republican African American Caucus, I find it offensive to see and hear this kind of meaningless rhetoric. It is simply another way of posturing and playing to partisan unrest..... Many of us (African American Republicans) have tried to sit back and look the other way, but when this kind of silly and meaningless rhetoric is espoused with such callousness and lack of sincerity, you can’t be silent. I don’t like having to speak out against my own party or its leadership. But if we do not, this continues, and it makes it appear that all African American Republicans are a part of this foolishness. Because of this, many of us have bowed out of the GOP political mix.  It also makes it hard to recruit other African Americans into the Republican Party, at a time when the Party needs to attract us.”
 
....So Chairman Steele, we invite you to be fervent in the same commitment you have to challenge Democrats, to also call for a change within the GOP; where what you do actually can have an impact in changing the racial climate in America.”

I don't think I could have said it much better myself.  This is really serious indictment of Steele's lack of leadership when it comes to doing something effective to grow the GOP's relationship with blacks as a political constituency. While he's busy jumping on the latest political bandwagon in calling for Reid to step down, he is totally silent on Rush's asinine Haiti comments, or any of his other race baiting rhetoric for that matter.  The guy is forever opening his mouth to gaffe in one way or another, but he can't seem to wrap his lips around a word or two of pushback when it comes to the party's funky rhetoric and messaging towards blacks, an issue he knows to be real.  Now, the Reid flap has become the proverbial straw and even black republicans deep within the party are finding this nonsense hard to stomach.

Steele, for the Love of God, Stop Signifying

I've blogged before about the racial chip that seems to exist on the shoulders of Michael Steele. You know, the one that manifests itself in the repeated use of "in da hood" slang in what I used to think was a half witted attempt to simultaneously keep it real with blacks and reassure whites that his election to RNC chair makes them hip and with it, but what I now believe is a manifestation of Steele's anger at the way the GOP dismisses blacks as an unnecessary political constituency for engagement.

It began on the very day of his election, when asked what message he had for the president and he replied "how do you like me now?" It continued through a disappointing early Esquire magazine interview laced with profanity and reached a new low when he came to Indiana for the Young Republican election and encouraged minorities "ya'll come. I got the fried chicken".

You've heard me on this before: why in God's name is a sixty something year old grown black man with a law degree from Georgetown finding it so hard to use the Queen's English on the regular? I'd like to say Steele has eased off this really annoying bad habit, but alas, I cannot.

Steele and company at the RNC just rolled out the new GOP. com website, complete with video of a miniature talking Michael Steele welcoming you in. Among other things, the new site sports a blog written by Steele himself. What does he title it: WHAT UP. Yes, I kid you not.

This frosts my cookies on two fronts: #1. I can't understand why he feels the need to remind people that he is black in this specific way, i.e., the use of slang and vernacular. It doesn't contribute to him being better understood or to putting people at ease or anything like that in my view. I've concluded that he continues to do this for the psychic benefit of thumbing his blackness in the party's eye, because he is angry (as he should be) at the way the GOP ignores blacks as a political constituency. This is the sort of passive aggressive way that he expresses that, since I guess he is simply not going to press his party to grow in this area. To be fair, he really can't.

Its worth noting (and to his credit) that even a stalwart, solid conservative commentator like Ed Morrisey at Hot Air acknowledges this reality, even if he doesn't acknowledge the scope of the fail. "the GOP has not put out much effort in talking sense to black voters and explaining conservative principles in the context of their lives. They should be focused on effective outreach, not slang-titled blogs that sound more patronizing than welcoming."

#2. It makes my head want to explode because in addition to using annoying slang like this, its like half the slang. If you gonna title the blog this way, then you need to go all the way and call it "Was Up", not "What Up". I mean it sounds like a preppie nerd from an uppercrust private boarding school trying to emulate gangster behavior to say it like that. Just annoying, especially out of the mouth of an over 60, balding black man with a law degree from Georgetown.

After a mountain of justly deserved ridicule, Steele and company have renamed the blog "Change the Game". Thats better

If you have not learned this lesson yet, learn it now. Cut the signifying Steele. Engage your party on the issue thats bugging you and stop this passive aggressive behavior. If you're not going to make the party grapple with it and confront it, then just accept it and move on.

Steele "Outreach" = EPIC Fail

Michael Steele was on hand here in Indianapolis for the auspicious election of Audra Shay to the presidency of the young republicans. Besides the funky optics of Audra Shay's election, after she co-signed the racially inflammatory remarks of Eric Piker, I didn't think there was anything else particularly remarkable that occurred at the event. I was mistaken.

Michael Steele had the opportunity to speak with bloggers during his visit and was asked a question about achieving greater diversity in the GOP. Watch below for his answer:



This is an EPIC FAIL moment for Steele personally and the GOP as a party in terms of messaging to blacks and minorities in general. Steele has repeatedly been described as an articulate man, and I have no doubt that he has a command of the English language and that is why this is EPIC FAIL material. "Y'all Come"? "I've got the fried chicken and potato salad?".

For the love of God, why does Steele trade in this stereotypical language? If anybody ought to be paying attention to the language they use as they try to create a better relationship between blacks and the GOP, its the RNC Chairman. However, Steele, because he is black, clearly believes he gets a pass to play with these types of stereotypes. Didn't we just get get treated to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor getting lectured by Cong. Grassely about how his career would be over if he had made a comment akin to her "wise Latina" statement? How is this any different? A white RNC chair would be excoriated for a comment like that, but Steele gets a pass because he's black? Steele clearly thinks so, because he uses this kind of language frequently.

The other EPIC FAIL here is that there is no plan on diversifying the party. Steele goes into this geriatric spiel about how republicans opposed slavery and if you believe in markets, freedom, blah, blah, blah, the GOP wants you and we don't care about how you want to live. All of that is really just an elaborate dodge of the question. He articulated no plan and that's because there isn't one. All there is is the same old tired rhetoric about how the GOP is really the party that supports black people and minorities in general, doled out with a generous helping of the same old stereotypes straight from the mouth of the RNC Chairman himself. I can hardly blame GOP rank and file folks like Eric Piker, or leadership such as Audry Shay or Councilman Fraggo in California for co-signing and passing on racially inflammatory material; they take their cues from Chairman Steele himself.

Limbaugh's Race Baiting: GOP Funky Messaging to Blacks Continues

On some days, it is hard to find counter arguments to the idea that the GOP is destined to become a regional party largely the province of a core of white conservatives espousing a far right ideology. I've often made the point that the GOP's lousy relationship with blacks is due to the fact that the party has not made a decision that blacks are a political constituency necessary or essential to the GOP's aspirations for governance. In practice, this means they pay little to no attention to the affect of their messaging on blacks or indeed operate without regard to it. Why bother to be careful about how you communicate to this particular group since you are not interested in their votes?

The party's ideological commander in chief Rush Limbaugh, has once again brought home this point with stunning clarity with comments on his show earlier this week.

LIMBAUGH: As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps. But in the Oval Office of the White House none of this is a problem. This is the objective. The objective is unemployment. The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation’s wealth and return to it to the nation’s quote, “rightful owners.” Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.

Its race baiting. Its intentional and deliberate pitting of a white political base against blacks to advance a political point. From the rank and file up to leadership, few will even bother to distance themselves from a comment like this. This kind of commentary is threatening both because its being put forward in political speech in this way and because its being eagerly lapped up by its audience. Will Michael Steele even have the guts to repudiate a comment like this? Just recently, he's gutsy enough to call Obama an affirmative action President, but is he willing to call out Rush on crap messaging like this to blacks, a political constituency he claims he wants the GOP to do a better job with? Probably not. The funky messaging continues.

Michael Steele: The Re-Animator Plays the Race Card

Michael Steele for a moment looked like maybe he was getting his sea legs under him finally. The recent RNC conference where his position regarding a resolution renaming the democratic party won the day and a speech that was well received seemed to indicate maybe he was getting out of first gear.

Turns out, not so much. Recently I spent some rhetorical energy debating with fellow conservatives about the prospects of attracting blacks to the republican party. My basic premise? That the republican party has not been successful with blacks in the past 40 years not because we are irredeemably liberal, but because the GOP has not made the decision that blacks are a political constituency which it considers necessary or essential to its aspirations for government. The GOP for years has made the calculation that it could win without the black vote (and it has). As a consequence, they have repeatedly used funky messaging and wedge tactics which pit the base against blacks. When you don't need their vote to win, you need not worry about your messaging being insensitive or provocative.

Steele came into office as chair vowing to improve the GOP's relationship with minorities, blacks among them. He's made the point on numerous occasions that the GOP has done a poor job of "outreach" to the black community. I would argue that the terminology "outreach" is indicative of the fundamental problem, but thats a side note.

Steele reanimates a zombie here, a line of attack from the campaign, namely that Obama is an unknown, a political cipher who has carefully hidden his true unpatriotic, America hating face from the public with the active collusion of the press. All of this due to liberal white guilt over America's checkered racial history. The chance to savage him with the Rev.Wright association was a missed opportunity according to Steele. I think I must have heard or seen Wright's "goddamn America" screed a billion times during the campaign. I'm quite sure that the Bill Ayers palling around with terrorists connection got a lot of attention to. What the GOP refuses to come to grips with is that these guilt by association tactics simply did not work. Most voters saw them as smear tactics with no real foundation and chose to disregard them in making a decision at the ballot box. Rehashing that now is as stupid as the left democrats howling for truth commissions on torture. Let it lay and look to the future.

I had hopes that Steele, a man who has repeatedly taken the GOP to task publicly about its almost non existent relationship with blacks, would address the funky messaging that has been part and parcel of the GOP's poor performance with this group. With this performance, Steele demonstrates that he is no more visionary or strategic than the party he leads as he plays the race card. To be fair, Bennet's audience is a GOP base audience and Steele's remarks are pitched at that base, but if he doesn't know by now that his words will be widely reported no matter the audience, he'd be stupid and I don't believe that's true. So he is intentionally taking this line of attack.

Steele's approach lacks smarts in a variety of ways. In terms of the GOP's relationship with blacks, this is more of that funky messaging problem. The essential argument being made here is that Obama is an affirmative action President. That he's not qualified for the job and got it because his racial identity was more important than other factors. This is going to tar Steele in the mind of many blacks and fairly so. I'm no supporter of affirmative action. In practice it has become a toxic issue whose political liabilities for blacks far outweigh its benefits in jobs or education, besides the fact that many argue we are far from being its biggest beneficiaries. GOP messaging pounces on its worst excesses to energize messaging to the base that says unqaulified blacks are taking jobs away from better qualified whites, where the underlying message seems to be that being white means you are defacto more qualified than a black applicant, or said differently, that if a black person person wins the competition for a job over a white person, any white person, it could only be because they were given unfair advantage. This is toxic.

Steele is using an argument with this kind of racial undertone to fuel his attack on Obama here and using his own black membership card as cover for it. Blacks will certainly not reward him for this behavior and it will increase the frequency with which Steele is called an Uncle Tom. Especially since Obama leaves plenty of room to attack him on his policies. For blacks, including me, when you go after Obama, now a sitting President, with warmed over guilt by association tactics that failed during the campaign, instead of cogent critiques of his policies and your own better ideas, you merely look small and irrelevant.

More broadly for the electorate at large, its boneheaded to resurrect this zombie attack line from the campaign (where it stopped Obama in his tracks, right?). It smacks of fighting a war that is now over. Obama won the election. Carping about how the media did not vet him properly will sound to most people like sour grapes. The base will eat it up, but this is the same base that was entirely unable to delivery victory to the GOP. The base is not enough to win, a fact Steele knows, but seems unable to craft a strategy for addressing. Steele demonstrates here that he is as cluess as the rest of the party on how to get the GOP out of this particular trick bag. Red meat appeals to the base like this may keep them energized, but drives away other constituencies that the GOP needs to do better with to win.

I lost some respect for Steele when he criticized Limbaugh and then walked it back. Not so much because he walked it back, but because his walkback was akin to groveling (he actually said he did not know what he was saying. This is a thoroughly grown black man with a law degree from Georgetown). I lose a little more respect for him here as he takes a rhetorical attack line that again sends the signal that the GOP continues to conclude that blacks as a political constituency are neither essential or necessary to its aspirations for governance.

Stooooooopid

From the Politico,

"When the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

If we say it, they will call us back from the wilderness. Not. This is such a time waster, so unhelpful, so irrelevant to coming up with solutions for this country, it is depressing. These are the kind of bold strategic messaging idiocies that will help the GOP remain in the wilderness for years to come. This is almost as bad as party messaging to minorities in its stupidity.

The special session itself is further evidence of the highly diminished standing of Steele as RNC chair. This bone headed resolution, which Steele opposed, along with Steele's being forced to submit to a variety of restrictions on how he spends RNC funds are but more indicators of the disarray in which the GOP finds itself.

Man of Steele vs. NeObama

Michael Steele in a fundraising appeal Monday launched a rhetorical attack reminiscent of the campaign. The Washington Times reports


"Criticized by some in the party for not taking on the Democratic president hard enough or often enough, Mr. Steele took the gloves off in a fund-raising letter sent out Monday to 12 million party supporters....The RNC letter noted that Mr. Obama while in Europe had said the United States has displayed "arrogance" at times in its foreign policy.

During his European tour, Obama also said this :

"But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what's bad." Obama continued: "On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America."

Steele's Public Statements Not Confidence Inspiring

Michael Steele is quickly approaching the point where I will simply stop taking him seriously at all when he speaks.  Thats not a good thing, particularly for a guy who wants to alter the relationship of the GOP with blacks (a goal I don't think is attainable for him anyway).  

His latest comments have the feel of whistling through the graveyard. 

You planned to have Rush rip you a new one on his show, so you could then turn around and publicly apologize, calling yourself inarticulate in the process? You drew the ire of socons about your abortion position so that you could see who screams the loudest? These things help you determine your place on the chess board of politics, help you determine who is your enemy and who is not? 

Its a lotta horse manure.  I've diagnosed the problem with Michael Steele and I won't claim to be the first to see it.  Steele has made this gig far too much about him, and not enough about the party.  Note that the stuff that gets him in trouble every time is when he is talking about himself.  His views, his ideas, rather than the GOP's.  When he is talking about himself, the whole enterprise goes off the rails. 

I don't think he gets this at all, so he's going to continue to say things that damage his credibility within and without the party.  Lets hope the fundraising numbers stay good.

Steele: The RNC's Inarticulate, Angry Black Man

I read Michael Steele's GQ interview finally. It pretty much left me with my jaw on the floor. I have a hard time believing that Steele will remain RNC chair after reading it and wondering very seriously if Steele should have this job at all. Right off the top, I was very disappointed with his tone :

I was kinda expecting hip-hop to be playing in here today. Aw, sh—. It’s on my, uh, computer there. I haven’t pulled it up yet, but I’ll get a little bit goin’ in a second or two.

Answering a question about other artists he liked to listen to: Love Dean Martin. He was one of these guys who just didn’t give an F.

How do you deal with the criticism?
I just pray on it.

You do?
Oh yeah. And I ask God, “Hey, let me show just a little bit of love, so I absolutely don’t go out and kick this person’s ass.”

First off, the slang references, the profanity and the really casual language were all turn offs. If I compare this performance along with his other media forays to prominent black republicans like Condi Rice or Colin Powell or J.C. Watts, this is below that standard. This is a guy who is supposed to be articulate and a communicator, but you would not know it from the quality of his conversation in this interview. I also thought he managed a series of silly questions ineffectively. If you’re trying to expand the tent, all of those questions need to be turned to getting the GOP view across to the people you want to entice in. I thought it was a very ineffective interview on that score. When the subject turned to abortion, it got worse.

The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice. You do? Yeah. Absolutely.
Are you saying you don’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
I think Roe v. Wade—as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.
Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
The states should make that choice. That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

This answer was incoherent mush delivered on a garbage can lid. Not to mention the fact that at the time he was born, abortion was illegal, so his mother’s choice would have been an illegal procedure in the shadows, something he ought to have an awareness of before somebody hands it to him in a rhetorical knuckle sandwich. He sounded like he was dodging giving a straight answer and in the process gave what sounded like a dishonest answer. A pro life stance means you would make it illegal to have an abortion. It would no longer be a legal choice women are permitted to make. Don't try to BS that. It makes you sound sinister. Really poor articulation of the issues and as an aside, too much about his position, not enough about the GOP's position.

The other thing going on here that is really blowing my mind is the HUGE racial chip Steele has on his shoulder. He is ticked off about the way the GOP handles black voters as a constituency and his anger is patently apparent in his comments.

Well, would you have this job if you were white?
Would I have this job? Now, that’s the reverse of the question I typically get. I usually get, would I have this job if the president were white? And my answer to that is yes. But would I have this job if I were white? [long pause] The answer to that is I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s a very good question. And it says a lot about, I think, where the party is right now that I can’t answer it.

Whoa, Whoa, WHOA!!! Let me get this straight. In the first example, if the president were white, you would have been elected to this job on your merits. But if the question, asked in the reverse is did you get this job not because you were the best, but because you were black, your answer is I don't know?!! This response was horrible, just really poorly delivered by a guy who has the job of RNC chair. I am the first to argue that the GOP has a problem with blacks. Its a fundamental problem that goes right to the issue of what the identity of the GOP is going to be. Steele clearly believes that too, but as the chairman of the GOP, he ought to articulate the concern and issue much better than this. Because if you want to address that, you are going to have to raise the issue in a way that is accessible within the party and the way he did it was not, at all.

You mean your Starbucks hasn’t closed yet?
No, my Starbucks has not closed. And it better not! You cannot close a Starbucks in a black community. We’ll riot!

I found this comment about Starbucks in a black neighborhood to be tasteless and inappropriate to the moment and its one of a string of comments he’s made now where he routinely throws into the public's face the self evident fact that he’s black. It is so unnecessary. Obama spent a campaign trying desperately to run away from race and Steele goes out of his way to remind us he's black and for the life of me I cannot understand why the guy is doing that, which began with his Kool Mo Dee stylings upon election, continued with his if we rap it, they will come strategy and now this interview. Its beginning to feel like his way of shoving his blackness down the throat of the party. I’m not sure why he feels that it is necessary to do that. But he keeps doing it, and the reason seems clear. He is angry at the party on the subject of blacks.

Give Steele credit for not just dealing with this issue in a passive aggressive mode however. He unflinchingly and candidly excoriates the GOP’s dismal relationship management with blacks as a constituency.

You made the comment at the convention about the sea of white faces. And you got a little bit of heat for that.
I sure did. And I looked at the people who gave me the heat and said, “What’s your problem? You tell me I’m wrong. Look at the room. Thirty-six black folks in the room? What, are you kidding me? Out of 4,000 people? Come on!”

Why do you think so few nonwhite Americans support the Republican Party right now?
’Cause we have offered them nothing! And the impression we’ve created is that we don’t give a damn about them or we just outright don’t like them. And that’s not a healthy thing for a political party. I think the way we’ve talked about immigration, the way we’ve talked about some of the issues that are important to African-Americans, like affirmative action… I mean, you know, having an absolute holier-than-thou attitude about something that’s important to a particular community doesn’t engender confidence in your leadership by that community—or consideration of you for office or other things—because you’ve already given off the vibe that you don’t care. What I’m trying to do now is to say we do give a damn.

His sentiments are probably shared by the majority of blacks and that includes black republicans. I completely agree with him here. Steele is speaking directly to the cognitive dissonance between the GOP's talk on race and the GOP's walk. The GOP is fundamentally disinterested in black voters as a constituency. That's not an accusation of racism. Its just the bald facts. The GOP does not believe that the black voter bloc is necessary or essential to their aspirations for governance. That is a sentiment held by both its leadership and by the rank and file.

While we're on the subject of cognitive dissonance, Steele has a bit of his own to grapple with as well. Talking to fellow blogger Sophia Nelson of Political Intersection in Essence magazine:

NELSON: What is your first priority with regard to changing the image of the RNC?

STEELE: Yes, we do have an image problem and the first thing I am going to do is take the GOP’s message to Black community. We are going to show up, spend time, and spend money. And most importantly, if we want our message to be heard, we have to talk to the Black media.

Its not an image problem that the GOP has with black voters. The GOP has made conscious decisions to use wedge tactics and divisive rhetoric that positions its base in opposition to blacks. Those decisions make it clear that the calculus of the GOP has been that they do not require the support of the black community to win governance. In an America of changing demographics, a political practice that seeks to overpower and ignore minority political constituencies is not a winning formula. The GOP will have to squarely confront the issues of concern to black voters in an effective way (Latinos as well) to harness their political power. Conservative ideology is more than equal to the task, but what passes for GOP/conservative political practice is not. The remedy for that is much more than a PR overhaul.

Steele's comments make me think one of two futures is possible. Future 1: Steele gets bounced from the chairman job, which I consider more likely if the fund raising numbers are not looking good. Future 2: Steele manages to stay on, but becomes marginalized and a token figure at the top of the party, and the real juice simply flows around him as the party avoids the funky atmospherics of dumping him. Because on the issue of race and the GOP’s relationship with blacks, Steele and the party's powerful right wing are worlds apart.

When Barack Obama gave the speech on race, did you agree with what he said?
I did. I mean, some of it. But my concern throughout this campaign was, people were treating him like he was going to be the Second Coming on the question of race. And because you have a black man as president doesn’t mean that tomorrow morning a black business is not gonna get redlined or a black family’s gonna be able to get their house. Those issues still exist. So the reality of it is, electing Barack does not necessarily change the underlying concerns and issues related to race. On one level it does, but I’m still a black man; when I walk in a room, you have attitudes about black folks. I can’t change that. And I’ve gotta deal with that reality regardless of my title. There are people in this country right now who would look at Barack Obama and still refer to him as “boy.” Period. That’s the reality of America [emphasis mine]. So my point is, just recognize that while the election is historic, while it is important, while it is transformative, it does not absolve us of having to deal day in and day out, in my life and your life, with the question of race.

Racism is the reality of America? He alludes to the idea that racism is institutionally embedded in our society. Agree or disagree, but I can hardly believe I'm listening to an RNC chairman. The consistent manner in which Steele reminds us of race both directly and with his cultural shorthand buzz words and slang, says to me that his party's stance relative to blacks really sticks in his craw and has done so for some time. Heck, look at his public statements about the issue of blacks and the GOP, its not like he is hiding it. The GOP remains in the grip of the sort of low brow conservatism represented by the Rush end of the spectrum and that sector of the party’s thinking on race and Steele’s views are like anti-matter to each other. Attorney General Holder caught flak for calling us a nation of cowards about race (from me included), but the GOP is looking cowardly right now, because everyone is savaging Steele for his abortion comments, but I have not seen anyone in the GOP say boo about his comments on race which are every bit as egregious. At Hot Air, look in the comments section on Steele related posts and you see repeated several times the idea that dumping the first black man to be RNC chair would make the GOP look bad.

He could finesse the issue by simply leaving it alone, but Steele is NOT doing that. He’s pushing it, but not in a smart way, and I’m not sure that will serve him well. He’s carrying his race on his shoulder and thats almost always not a good look.

If You Have to Say You're the Leader of the Party, Then You're Not

Crossposted at Independent Blogger Alliance

If you're in charge, you don't have to say anything. You just behave like you're in charge. This political truism was clearly demonstrated by the Limbaugh smackdown of Steele.

This was Michael "Man of " Steele, so called leader of the Republican Party, on CNN's D.L Hughley show this past weekend:

Steele belittled Rush as an "entertainer" and called his rhetoric ugly and incendiary.

Here's an excerpt of Rush's response on his show on Monday 3/2/09. Note that Rush states in no uncertain terms that Steele is not the head of the Republican Party.

This was Michael Steele today, talking to the Politico in a phone interview.

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. "It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not."

“I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh,” Steele added. “No such thing is going to happen. … I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything.” “He brings a very important message to the American people to wake up and pay attention to what the administration is doing," Steele said. "Number two, there are those out there who want to look at what he’s saying as incendiary and divisive and ugly. That’s what I was trying to say. It didn’t come out that way. …

Asked if he planned to apologize, Steele said: “I wasn’t trying to offend anybody. So, yeah, if he’s offended, I’d say: Look, I’m not in the business of hurting people’s feelings here. … My job is to try to bring us all together.”

Steele has now been effectively demolished as a credible party leader as far as I'm concerned. This was not simply an apology, this statement goes further than that. This my friends is groveling. Read his quote again - “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.” “I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said."It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently.
Are you kidding me? Steele calls himself inarticulate and essentially says that he didn't know what he was saying. This is a 64 year old, grown black man with a law degree from Georgetown. You cannot possibly expect me to take you seriously after you cave in such a cringing, spineless fashion. I thought Steele got off to a very poor rhetorical start from the jump with his Kool Mo Dee stylings when he won the post of RNC chair. My estimation of his rhetorical and party building skills dropped even further when he declared if we rap it, they will come. Now, he has written a check with his mouth that his behind can't cash on the bank of Rush that could endanger his post as RNC chair in just a few short weeks. Again, for the record, Rush told Steele "you are not the head of the republican party". Which begs the question, who is?

Steele's done himself some near irreparable damage with this, because its hard to respect a guy who will backpedal that fast and that hard. I would have respected him more if he had stuck to his guns and I suspect that so would a lot of other republicans who don't care to belong to the ditto head crowd. He'll have to be stellar going forward to regain a modicum of the regard I had for him. Like the One himself, his promise seems outmatched by his reality. Steele had recently promised to roll out a beyond cutting edge PR campaign. If that campaign is as ill advised and clumsy as these most recent gaffes, the GOP is going to have a real problem.

Then again, the GOP already has a problem that is pretty ginormous and of which Steele's humiliation (don't kid yourself, thats what it is) is merely a symptom. Simply put, the party is bankrupt, both in ideas and most sorely in leadership. Rush Limbaugh is indeed what Steele said. He is an entertainer. That is how he makes his living. His product is what John Derbyshire calls low brow conservatism. Here's why this sticks in my craw. For all his 2+ decades in radio and his audience of 20 million, Rush is not now nor has he ever been accountable to a single voter, has not held office nor run for any public position of responsibility. Yet, there does not appear to be a single republican in the House or the Senate who would dare disagree or be critical of him without walking those words back within 24 hours. Men and women elected by voters who do not dare to challenge anything Rush wants to say. Indeed, when Rush essentially calls republican lawmakers out as gutless, that comment appears to have some validity, because they won't say boo to Rush.

Of what possible use is such a party? When one man commands such fealty? When no elected official dares challenge his opinion or voice a strongly held criticism or opinion contrary to his? I find it pathetic.

Steele's Hip Hop Recruitment Plan is.... Ludicris

Michael Steele plans a full on PR blitz to capture the minds and hearts of America's hip hop generation. He tells the Washington Times:

"We need messengers to really capture that region - young, Hispanic, black, a cross-section," he explained. "We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings."

This is ridiculous. A middle aged, balding black republican takes over the RNC and all of a sudden its about hip hop? Thats job #1 now, capture the "hip hop" generation of latinos and blacks? Tell me he's kidding. Please, somebody tell me that he is just joking.

Shay, of Booker Rising, a favorite daily read, has this response:

Wrong move to target one of the most leftist, victimologist-prone groups within Black America. First things first. Mr. Steele should focus on the self-identified black conservatives (31.3% of Black America, compared to 43.6% who identify as liberal and 24.4% who identify as moderate) who now mostly vote Democratic. Or his fellow Catholics: among black Americans, black Catholics are significantly likelier to be Republicans than any other religious group. Or blacks who own stocks. These folks are more persuadable to his message. They tend to not hang out at gatherings that promote cultural crudeness.

Shay's points are pretty solid and I certainly buy the argument that if Steele believes the PR approach is whats lacking, he ought to solidify the GOP's weak market position with that portion of the black electorate already disposed towards them. The GOP has a very small beachhead with blacks, and there is some merit to the idea that they need to battle further up the beach from there, though it is metaphorically as difficult and deadly as storming the beaches at Normandy.

But I would argue the fail here is more fundamental.  GOP strategic thinking about blacks and latinos as electoral constituencies, particularly blacks, from the base seemingly right up to its leader, the Man of Steele, assumes that blacks are too stupid to act in their own self interest. GOP thinking takes the position that blacks have been brainwashed and turned into political zombies in thrall to the Democrats. Outreach to them therefore must be crafted like cult deprogramming, to break them out of their trance.

Steele's approach assumes that the issue is not the GOP's principles, but its marketing of the message thats the problem. Blacks and Latinos are not with the party because apparently, we are just too stupid to understand the superiority of GOP thinking explained in plain english. But have no fear, the key to activating the higher brain centers of all us dumb, unsophisticated minorities is the high technology of hip hop. If we rap it, they will come.

Michael Steele Takes Over as RNC Chair: Feels a little "me too" ish

The GOP surprised me a bit yesterday and elected Michael Steele as RNC chair in what by some accounts apparently was a very dramatic day of voting. Steele appears to have gained the advantage as the voting rounds continued from the support of Ken Blackwell, who dropped out and threw his support to Steele when it was clear he would not win the day. I like the way top GOP brothers are standing by each other. I'm lukewarm to Blackwell, but I like the way he threw his support to the other qualified brother vying for the top spot when he concluded he couldn't win.

Fellow black conservative blogger Cobb likes Steele, and his "hail fellow, well met" is good enough for me. Steele earns praise from the conservative brethren around the web at RedState and Hot Air, and by most accounts, this is a capable brother. I have no doubts that he is qualified and able to lead the GOP. But I gotta tell you, some of the atmospherics are cringe inducing, like the following:

I have to wince a bit. Roman Buhler waxing poetic about Lincoln and how he would be proud the GOP elected a black man because of his character, not his color. If you have to say it so giddily, you're more focused on the color than you want to admit. Prencilla Smith echoes the giddiness, stating that Steele doesn't just represent African Americans. Considering how little blacks participate in the GOP, thats pretty self evident. The emphasis on his race in her comments is out of proportion to the statement that its not because he's black. Steele himself makes the statement that the GOP doesn't concede any vote, and presumably he's talking about black voters and perhaps latino voters too.

But anybody who's crossed swords with me in rhetorical combat about the GOP knows that I believe the GOP to be fundamentally disinterested in black voters as a constituency. Thats not an accusation of racism. Its just the bald facts. The GOP does not believe that the black voter bloc is necessary or essential to their aspirations for governance. That is a sentiment held by both its leadership, which Steele himself has stated, and by its rank and file, though we try not to talk about it. Electing a black man as head of the RNC is unlikely to change this fundamental issue, nor does Steele's election mean that the party is more interested in blacks joining the GOP. It remains to be seen if the GOP will stop using coded racial messaging and wedge tactics pitting blacks against their base as standard parts of its strategy to win.

There seems to be an expectation that Steele will change the GOP's messaging, make it more effective to voter blocs that have stayed out of the conservative coalition like blacks. No amount of messaging change up though is going to fix the GOP's disinterest and I will watch with interest how outreach efforts to blacks take shape. Whether or not the party makes a move to be more welcoming to blacks, inevitably there will be the usual tone deaf messaging behavior somewhere in the party structure or in its affiliates. I'll watch with interest Steele's leadership at those moments, and the GOP's followship even more so.

So far, Steele's rhetorical performance has induced at least one cringe response out of me and is perhaps an early signal that he may be more a change of face than anything else in the subconscious of the GOP. Asked about his message to President Obama upon his election as RNC chair, he answered;

“I would say to the new president, congratulations. It is going to be an honor to spar with him,” Steele said. “And I would follow that up with: How do you like me now?”

"How do you like me now?" You begin your history making run as the first black RNC chair with this kind of signifying reference in black rapper vernacular to the current President? You make that reference because Obama is black. If it was Joe Biden or Hillary, that would not have been your statement. Obama spent the campaign running from this kind of monkey signifying BS, trying to have the campaign be about his ideas, not his color. Steele gets the gig and this is whats coming out of his mouth on day one!

"How do you like me now?" What kind of challenge is that to issue to the President? I'm a brother and you a brother, so let me address you like rappers talk? I went to Georgetown and you went to Harvard, but let me talk to you like Kool Moe Dee? You want to begin your tenure by positioning yourself as the new GOP HNIC vs. the Democrat HNIC? Triflin.

And I'm sure that disrespectful little snarky statement tickled his GOP brethren to no end, but it may well be a signal from the get go that the tone and content of the GOP's messaging to blacks will not undergo any real change. Obama got the votes of 98% of black America, but the new RNC chair who is black wants to start his reign on day one by getting in Obama's face? That doesn't show much respect and if you disrespect Obama, by proxy, you are disrespecting the 98% of blacks that voted for him. Thats not a change in tone or content, and if the GOP thinks a disrespectful message becomes more palatable because it issues out of a black face, they should think again.

Black Republicans Not Feeling the Love, Because It's Not There

Kindred black republican Sophia Nelson has fired up a post election analysis on the GOP defeat, its causes and where the GOP goes now. Her starting premise:

"After such a devastating loss, Republicans will have to do some retooling. We'll have to decide whether we want to be the party that believes in smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation, or whether we're going to be a litmus-test party that responds only to the demands of social conservatives. But most important, we'll have to confront our most disastrous modern legacy: our poor relationship with black Americans, the very people the party was formed to protect from the expansion of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska in 1854"

Nelson suggests that this defeat came because the McCain campaign conceded the black vote. That would be accurate only if you assumed that they ever intended to make a play for it in the first instance. I would contend they did not. Early on, McCain, along with the other front runner republicans, blew off Tavis' Smiley's debate, a prime opportunity for the front runners and the party itself to make a case to black America. Later on, McCain traveled to Atlanta for King's big memorial event and apologized for opposing his holiday, a transparent and tepid attempt to curry goodwill with blacks. Clearly a harbinger of the decrepit cogitation going on in the republican party when it comes to blacks. That kind of gesture might have got you some love in the 50's. It means diddly squat now. Out of 2,000 delegates at the republican convention, a mere 36 were black Americans. It continued downhill from there. The fact is, McCain and the republican party writ large, never even gave it a shot. They figure they can win without blacks, particularly since they were banking on the hispanic vote to come their way. For all his various and sundry apostate stances which put him crosswise with the base, principled attention to the issues of black America was not one of them. Nelson suggests republicans may have lost the black vote for a generation, but it's hardly fair to suggest that its McCain's fault. His abysmal performance is merely a symptom of the GOP's political indifference to black America.

Nelson points to RNC leadership hopeful Michael Steele's succinct analysis of the problem. "The problem, former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele told the Washington Times last week, is that party officials "don't give a damn." To them, he said, "outreach means let's throw a cocktail party, find some black folks and Hispanics and women, wrap our arms around them -- 'See, look at us.' And then we go back to the same old, same old."

This is so blisteringly accurate its heartwarming. Coming from the guy who is vying for leadership of the RNC, it's almost a sign of hope for the GOP. Alas, this is the same guy who thinks the McCain campaign should have vigorously hammered away at Obama with Rev. Wright. Tactically, such behavior might have been effective with base republican voters, but it would certainly have only widened the chasm between the GOP and black Americans. Steele wants to lead the RNC back from the wilderness, but doesn't seem to see such tactics as the same old he identified as the problem.

Sophia echoes a common lament of the black conservative and/or republican existence. "My black GOP colleagues and I endure endless ridicule and questioning from other African Americans, including close friends and family members who wonder how we can belong to a political party that is so overwhelmingly white, male, Southern, conservative and seemingly closed to ethnic minorities. And truth be told, it's sometimes an ill fit."

Tis all too true. My mother in law routinely described me as the "whitest black man" she ever knew. When the conversation turns to politics in social company, you find yourself defending conservative viewpoints and catching the raised eyebrows that signals that your conversation partner is thinking "sellout". This is actually become less the case I think on social issues, where blacks have some natural conservative bent, but on policy issues, still a tough sell. Ill fit? Try no fit. GOP outreach to black American's has never seemed more than half hearted and when they began to think there was electoral gold in them hispanic hills, their attention really did drift.

Steele's prescription to fix this problem and presumably Nelson's as well? "Talk to them. Actually engage the black community where they are. Stop thinking you're going to get by by having a handshake and a photo-op, and actually go and listen to black folks in the issues and the concerns they have and . . . make them important to the [party's] overall strategy."

It sounds good. The problem? The GOP has never given any indication that they considered politically addressing the needs of black folks as important to their aspirations for governance. In fact quite the opposite. Year after year, the GOP has hammered away at affirmative action in ways that indict blacks as unqualified recipients of its largess, championed get tough law and order approaches in the war on drugs without regard to the consequences and now we reap the re-entry whirlwind, and fueled election races across the land with racially coded messaging for extra punch. They've done these things quite knowingly, to win the republican base, thinking that the base was large enough to keep them in power.

This is where I think Nelson is off track. Nowhere in her analysis does she confront the GOP's repeated, knowing and intentional utilization of racial messaging, a method of political attack that is used by party apparatus at a variety of levels. The continued use of such tactics and scapegoating of blacks and hispanics (for example, the CRA forced banks to lend to poor black people meme or the we will be overcome by a brown invasion meme) that is done with every intention of firing up the base and appealing to white base voters by using these issues constructed in wedge fashion. This is purposeful, and it seems to me that Steele does not want to acknowledge that piece and Nelson is avoiding it because its an inconvenient truth she would rather not speak.

Being a black of conservative political bent and nominally a republican (reluctant is my preferred term) I do so with a clear understanding that the party has been communicating for some time now its lack of interest in black America as a political entity. The GOP does not make any real effort I am aware of to effectively apply conservative principles to the major policy challenges facing black America despite ample opportunity and fertile ground to do so. Even beyond that, the party has demonstrated that it is more than willing to pursue electoral and political victories in a manner that cuts against the political interests of black Americans with regard to how it conducts its messaging.

As the GOP tries to rebuild, it shows little to no sign that it will confront this fundamental disconnect and black conservatives do not do the GOP, themselves or black America any favors by not calling out the issue squarely.